Guy Murchie: the mystery of his life.

On the very first few pages of the Mysteries, even before the book actually begins, there is a mystery hidden: Murchie dedicates his book to:

To my first wife,
Eleanor Forrester Parker 1880-1960 
who rode the horse,
played the violin,
wrote poetry
and loved life -- 
for what she taught me long ago. 

Now, usually in a marriage, the spouses are of comparable ages, the husband often be a little older than his wife. Under these assumptions, Mr. Murchie would be born around 1878. But the Mysteries was first published around 1978, at a time that the author was around 100 years old. The Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/) catalogs Murchie as born in 1907, which makes him no less than 27 years younger than his wife. Such an agedifference is certinly unusual, and this is what I call "The mystery of his life". Was Mr. Murchie really married to woman who was 27 years his senior?

Looking around on the omniscient Internet, the first reference I found was in a biography of Barbara Cooney (who was the Fiep Westendorp of the USA):

"She enrolled in officer training and achieved the rank of second lieutenant, but was honorably discharged the following spring because of marriage and the pregnancy of her first child, Gretel. She married Guy Murchie, Jr., a war correspondent, in December of 1944. In 1945, the young couple bought a farm in Pepperell, Massachusetts where they ran a children’s camp during the summer months. One can only imagine that, perhaps, family life didn’t suit Mr. Murchie and the couple divorced in March of 1947, but not before having one more child, Barnaby. "

But was this skunk that so brutally left his young wife and kids really the Guy Murchie we are looking for? I looked further and found the following from the Obituaries of the Harvard magazine, nov-dec. 1997 (http://www.harvard-magazine.com/issues/nd97/obits.html):

"GUY MURCHIE '29 died July 8 in Fullerton, Cal. He was an author, artist, photographer, and aviator who had worked on the staff of the Chicago Tribune. From 1940 to 1942 he was the newspaper's war correspondent in England and Iceland. His books included Men on the Horizon, Song of the Sky, Music of the Spheres, and The Seven Mysteries of Life. He leaves a daughter, Gretel Goldsmith, and a son, Barnaby Porter." (Note by the editor: Porter was the name of Mrs Cooney's second husband.)

This is too much for coincidence, isn't it? Our good Guy really was married to Mrs. Cooney, and he does have two children, Gretel and Barnaby. But, still, can one only imagine that, perhaps, family life didn't suit Mr. Murchie? Fortunately, those of us who have read a bit more than illustrated children's books have a more vivid imagination:

Guy Murchie did or did not marry Eleanor Forrester Parker, we really don't know yet. And if this odd couple was indeed married, we do not know when they divorced. It may have been long before 1944, the year in which the war correspondent and the illustrator met. In the midst of the terrors of war, they sought each others comfort, and as war can endanger any life, even the ones of the unborn, Barbara got pregnant. Guy did the decent thing: he married her, but, we can only imagine that, perhaps, farm life was not as exciting as the terrors of war, and the couple realised that decent things are not always good things.

We may never know the reason why they split up, but we do know that both Guy and Barbara married gain later. Guy to Käthe, and Barbara to dr. Porter. They all lived long and hopefully happy: Guy until 1997, Barbara until 2000.

-- EsteemedEditor - 14 Nov 2005